Seriously, baseball season needs to get here already.
To tide you over, let's do the news.
Today, R.A. Dickey starts his hike to the summit of Mount Kilamanjaro. Here's his most recent thoughts on the climb from NY Times Bats blog. As a brief aside, I think R.A. Dickey, after only two seasons, has cracked my top 3 favorite Mets of all time. There is nothing that is not completely awesome about him. The last two years have been borderline brutal to sit through. But once every five days, there was Dickey, and then baseball was good again. Be safe, R.A.
After seeing Beltran's new deal, Beyond the Boxscore decided to take a look at contracts after 100 million dollar contracts. I bet Beltran provides a bit of surplus value to the Cards, as long as they still don't think he can play CF for 50 games or something nuts like that.
Good news everyone! Marlins fans! Hanley Ramirez is totally okay with moving to third base now.He's really not going to sulk and halfass it on defense this year. (not that you'd be able to tell the difference) And he definitely won't get into a fight in the dugout with Ozzie Guillen. So of course I absolutely do not still have May 5th in the "what date does Hanley Ramirez first gets into a fight in the dugout with Ozzie Guillen" pool.
Hide your GMs and long term contracts everybody. It's Boras Time! Prince Fielder looks like the next Boras client to get 'overpaid,' as the Nationals seem to be closing in on signing him. But that's not stopping Boras from saying crazy Boras things. Edwin Jackson wants to get paid as well, though, and with the crazy trade market for starting pitching right now, Jackson looks pretty intriguing.
Ryan Braun's herpes is the gift that keeps on giving apparently, this time in the form of a 50 game suspension.
David Schoenfeld takes a look at Barry Larkin's Hall of Fame case and wonders if no one will get elected this year. It looks like Larkin is going to get in, but keep in mind Cooperstown and the HoF will eventually bring the hammer down on the BBWAA if they keep only putting in one player a year. HoF weekend is a huge revenue generator for the town/museum, and more players in = more fans to upstate NY.
Al Yellen of Baseball Nation has 12 very reasonable predictions for 2012. Not listed, Mike Puma will once again report that Luis Hernandez will be the Mets opening day second baseman.
Finally, Chris Cwik of fangraphs examines Petco Park and the Padres' new bats. The Friars just need to move the fences in, that will solve all their problems.